It is well known in the art to refrigerate vegetables, poultry and the like to preserve the same during shipment or storage. Usually, specially designed cartons or boxes are provided for holding the vegetables or poultry and chipped ice is simply shovelled in the cartons to cover the contents. The cartons are sealed and normally transported in refrigerated railway cars or trucks to preserve them in an iced condition.
Problems associated with the foregoing procedures primarily result from non-uniform refrigeration of the contents of the box. Since the ice can only be applied to the top surface of the contents of the carton or box, there is not sufficient penetration through the various layers of vegetables or poultry to assure uniform cooling of all of the contents. Thus, while the first few layers may be cooled sufficiently, the lower layers may not meet the necessary requirements for proper refrigeration.
In the case of vegetables, the above problem has been solved by providing a mixture of ice and water in the form of a slurry or "liquid ice" which can then be poured over the top of the contents of a carton and will permeate fairly uniformly throughout the entire volume thereby providing greatly increased uniformity in the refrigeration. So far as I am aware, however, the use of such "liquid ice" for icing poultry has not heretofore ever been used. In the case of poultry, there are strict sanitation requirements which must be met. Thus, any system for providing liquid ice for use in poultry packing would have to meet such requirements.
Heretofore the application of "liquid ice" to vegetables and the like has been accomplished by hand and each individual carton is manipulated and filled by personnel at a work station. It would be helpful if this process could be automated. Further, while the use of "liquid ice" increases the penetration of the refrigerant throughout the volume of the vegetable, an improved arrangement whereby superior penetration could be achieved would be highly desirable particularly in re-icing operations or in icing cartons brought in from the field.